Tumbling Along

Back in 2015 I asked my pal Julie to cut up some of my fabrics into tumbler shapes for a spring quilt. I didn't get very far with them.

They were too meek. Too washed up for my taste. They needed some pop, but I didn't know what. So I set them aside.

 Eventually I asked Julie to cut me more tumblers out of a selection of kick-ass fabrics I chose.  I got sidetracked, and went on to make the Triangle quilts.

After finishing up the last tutorial, I had a clean studio and a dilemma. What to do next? I didn't want to make another scrap slab triangle quilt, so I pulled out the tumblers.

Since it's very hard to know where you want to go with something until you have a starting point, I decided to just cover the design wall with tumblers, figuring I could rearrange them once they got up there, so that's what I am doing now.

Naturally I had to start tinkering with them. I already know this isn't it, and I will play some more. I have a LOT of pieces, and I really can't know where I want them to go until I see what I have.

So that's the job for the Easter weekend.

The Stack - The Plan

A couple of weeks ago, I showed you this picture of a stack of fabrics.

The strips are 4" x 11" and I think there are 200 or so of them.  So what did I do with them?

I asked Julie if she'd cut them into tumblers using her Accu-Cut gizmo. (I think that's what it's called.)

So I sent them to Tennessee, Julie cut them up, and they came back yesterday.  "I liked looking at the colors and fabrics you chose," she said when we talked on Sunday. "It's going to be a very pretty quilt."

I picked the colors and fabrics thinking of Spring. I sewed a few random pairs together to see what they might look like. It's going to be a table quilt.

So, OK, here they are:


Winter - "Picnic Table"

Spring will be the Tumblers (above)

Summer is the Blue Deco

Fall is the Fall House Top (away being quilted)

And last is the Christmas Random Plank.

All were made from fabrics from my stash.  (Yikes!)  I wanted them all to be scrappy, yet different. I don't think the Spring one is going to take long to make. I think once I get started it'll move right along.  You all know I love to watch Tennis on TV. Well, the French Open is going on right now, and I can sew and watch tennis at the same time. How good is that?

Yeah, I know I'm nuts.

Heh.

Tumbler Reboot

I wasn't happy with the tumblers. The colors are one note in terms of value - not too light, and not too dark. It's a charming color combination, and would be very pleasing if I continued, but for me it doesn't have enough verve or pizzazz.

I wasn't quite sure what it needed. If I can't identify the problem, I can't find a solution. Long experience has told me that if I don't know where I'm going, I stop working.  But that doesn't mean I stop thinking. I also keep my eyes and ears open. You never know when inspiration will strike.

While visiting Kathy in Belfast Maine, I saw two paintings by Linda Packard, a local artist.

These paintings reminded me that I needed a full range of values. My tumblers had a lot of middle values, but not enough light lights, and certainly not enough darks or intense colors.

So once I got home from Maine, I pulled some more fabrics, and I think these will help solve my problem.

Tumblers & White Flowers

 I've been pairing up the tumblers and sewing them together.

It's fun discovering things in the garden. These large white irises are at the end of the driveway, just beyond the carport.

 This is the bush I asked about last week. It's  in flower now. Maybe somebody will  be able to help me figure out what it is.

These two were taken with my phone, so I apologize for any fuzziness, but you ought to be able to click them to enlarge and supersize for more detail.

Tumbling Over & Over

My tumblers are now in four big chunks and I'll sew the last three seams later tonight. (It's time for Call the Midwife & Masterpiece Theatre.)

Diamond Jubilee Backing

I bought eight yards of this gigantic print for the backing of the Diamond Jubilee quilt. I cut it in half and seamed it together to make a giant square, then realized two things.

1. I did not need eight yards, I only needed six, so my backing was 36" too long. Oh well, better to have too much than not enough.

2. I forgot to add my niece's name to the back of the quilt.

Fortunately, having too much meant I could chop off a yard and make the name. Which I did, no problem. I had originally chosen yellows and yellow oranges, but when I set those fabrics on the backing fabric I came to my senses and changed my mind. Pink it would be.

So I made her name, and then added fabric around it, and sewed it to the rest of the backing fabric. The ruler in the photo above shows just how big this name is. It's a 24" ruler (61cm).

Now, adding a name to the back of a quilt is harder than it looks. Per Chris's request, all my backings are 6" bigger all the way around. So I have to place the name inside that area, and then I want to place it as close the the center as possible, so if the quilt does not get precisely centered (which it never will) the letters won't get chopped off when I trimmed the edges of the quilt after quilting. (That would be BAD!) And sticking something in the middle of something else is a royal PITA, especially when you are working with six plus yards of fabric.

So I decided to sew the name under a 12" tall strip of the backing fabric at the TOP of the backing. I know from long experience working with Chris that she usually starts quilting about four inches from the top, not six, so my name panel would be far enough down not to be a problem, and although I didn't center it horizontally (because, hey, I like asymmetrical) there is plenty of space on either side of the name panel

You will notice the letters aren't aligned on the same baseline. No, that's not a mistake, I did that on purpose.

Now every quilt I have made since August has a backing ready for it. That's five, for those of you keeping count. (The Petals quilt and the Comfort quilt are flying away today. The Blue Boy was born two weeks early and his quilt has yet to be gifted.)

I am going to take a break. Thanksgiving is coming up, and I host that dinner each year. (Let's hope I cook it at my house this year. Snow and a power outage moved the feast to my sister's last year.) I have to deal with the avalanche of paperwork on my desk, and I still have to put the front garden to bed for the winter (I filled eleven large lawn and leaf bags with leaves on Saturday from the back and side yards.)

I'll get back to sewing, of course. I still have the twirling triangles and the tumblers to do, and I've got a special project related to last year's secret project percolating in my head. I couldn't tell you about it then, and I can't tell you about it now, either. When it's time to let the cat out of the bag, I'll tell you.

I've added another page on my blog, it's called Word Quilts 2010. It shows my arty word quilts I made from 2009 to 2010. Eventually I'll have them all up there for easy reference. I'll be working on that too.

I'm not going anywhere. If you know me, you know I have always got stuff going on, but I won't be posting regularly for a while, so don't worry.

Tumblers

After pairing and sewing a stack of tumbler blocks together, I decided to lay them out on the floor to see what they might look like.  It didn't take long to figure out that this would look good no matter how I put it together.

Thank you ladies. Deutzia is the little white bush out front. It's certainly a keeper.

Colors

This is me. I wore this to work one day I don't even know when. The shirt is what I would have called a maroon, but really it's a deep red-violet, one of my favorite colors. The seashell necklace is a blue green, the vest is a sunny yellow.

I keep telling you all to notice things that catch your attention. Clearly it got mine, so I took the picture. So what's going on here, what makes these colors sing? The red violet is a deep warm color. The yellow is light, and it is also warm. The necklace is a cool greenish blue. There is a strong Hot/Cold contrast going on, along with a Light/Dark one. Red violet is not directly across the color wheel from the blue green (that would be a yellow green, or what we call today an acid or limey green, which is also a warm color,) but it is close to a Complimentary contrast.

The red violet (which could be described as Red, Red, Blue) and the cool greenish blue (Yellow, Blue, Blue) share the color blue, while the vest and the necklace share the color Yellow.


This got me to thinking. If I was to add a fourth color here, which would it be? To me there are only three options, and all the answers are in the descriptions above. I know which three they are, and any of the three would make this a kick-ass color combination.

What do YOU think the three colors are? And if you can't come up with all three, give it your best shot. I'm going to enable content moderation on this, so you won't be able to see what everybody else thinks when you enter your comments. You get bonus points if you can tell my WHY those three are perfect.

Good luck,

AND OH, Quilt Granma, the tumblers on my Easter Basket quilt were NOT sewn together randomly. I placed each and every one of them with care and precision. The leader-ender thing just doesn't work for me.

Why not? Two reasons:

One, I hate the random thing. Random isn't necessarily better, it's just lazy. I know how to make anything look good, so why would I "settle" for something/anything when I can make everything awesome? (Search my blog for "The One Strip" for more on that topic.

Two: It's the same answer as when folks ask me how many quilts I have going at one time (and backings don't count.) "I can only have one lover at a time."

Binding Easter Basket

I attached the binding for the tumblers quilt, Easter Basket, last night.

I'll pin it over to the front and hand sew it down. This will be a table cover for my dining room table.

My Stash

A few posts ago somebody made a comment about my stash. So here, without any fussing or cleaning up, are photos of all the fabric I have.

 Most of my stash lives in this bookcase. The little scrap bins hold all my little scraps (anything bigger than 2" square that I don't have to fold lives in the accessory bins.) Everything is stored by color.

Underneath my ironing table are "Shoebox bins" where I store long strips and larger cut pieces, also organized by color. On the floor you can see bins of BOB, WOW and selvages.  ALL my plastic bins are from The Container Store. They stack neatly on top of each other and are otherwise wonderful.

This is stuff I bought in Maine and have not put away yet. I wash ALL my fabric before I use it. Then I iron it, fold it and put it away.

Some of these stacks of fabrics are stacked for an idea I have. Some are just there because I was thinking of something, pulled the fabric, and haven't put it back yet.  I work for a living, so I have a lot of other stuff to do. Cleaning in the studio isn't always a high priority. Right now I consider the studio pretty clean.

There's always one table that has a pile of stuff on it. This is mine.

I like to keep the top of my ironing table clear, but that doesn't always happen. Here I've got the fabrics for the Amish project, the tumblers and the solids bin. You can also see a bit of my inspiration wall.

That's all, folks!

The Table Quilts & A Few Ideas

When I visited my pal Julie in 2013 I was surprised to see a quilt covering the table in her kitchen. I thought it was a good idea to protect the table and a nice way to show off a quilt. I inherited my grandmother's mahogany dining room table, and I have to keep it covered to protect the surface. A quilt would do that quite nicely.  Over the years I have made seven.

I use the rail fence quilt, Picnic Table in January.

I wanted a red and white quilt for February. This is Peppermint Swirl.

I made a black and white Slashed Squares quilt for the month of March. I call it Terrazzo.

I like using "Hidden Treasure," the quilt Julie made for me using my leftover bits for April.

The Tumblers quilt, Easter Basket, is the one I use for the month of May.

I like using the Blue Deco quilt for June, and the rest of the summer.

The Fall House Top quilt is the one I use for November and the big Thanksgiving Feast.

The Christmas Random Plank is the quilt for December.

I like having different quilts for each month, but if I do that, I am missing quilts for July, August, September and October.  So I had to think about that. Do I really want to have a quilt for each month of the year?  YES! What would I do for those? My birthday is in July, so I knew that would have to be something special.

The quilts I have tend to be seasonal colors, so according to that August should be hot colors or red orange and yellow. September is probably my favorite month of the year - the weather is perfect, and October is peak fall foliage season, so that means reds, yellows and oranges with some greens and blues. Well, ok, but August and October aren't anything alike, and I don't want them to have the same colors. Maybe August could be beach colors - sandy tans for the beach, light blues for the sky and blue greens for the ocean...

I like that idea for August, so that's a go.

When I started looking at fabric shops online the idea for July came to me like a thunderbolt.  

I like Pink, and although it isn't necessarily my favorite color, I wear a lot of it because I look good in it.

 So the quilt for July will be Pink. (Then I bought about 13 yards of 28 different pinks!)

I like the quilts to be different designs too. I want to make a scrap slab quilt for one of these, and when the Wavelength quilt showed signs of looking three-dimensional, I got out my little notebook and did this drawing. It looks like a honeycomb, and as soon as that word popped into my head I knew that would be the theme of this quilt and that it would be the quilt for October.

And for that quilt, I may very well use White on Black fabrics for the dark side triangles instead of just darker Black on Whites. I'll experiment, of course, and see. I've got plenty of time.

That leaves September, but I'm not going to worry about that at all. I only have color ideas for July and August, and that's never stopped me in the past, but I do have a very specific idea for October, so that's where I'll start.

The next quilt is: Honeycomb, in Golds, Oranges, and Yellows for October!

Another Backing & Other Stuff

It was a spectacular weekend in New Hampshire. It was sunny, dry and 65 - 70 F. I spent much of the weekend in the garden planting herbs and setting out some geraniums.

I also spent time in the kitchen baking angel food cake and using the leftover egg yolks in some homemade bread. Both were delicious.

I also got the fabric for the backing of the Jewel Box quilt of diamonds. I chose a big floral print (top photo).

When I go full tilt on making quilts, the house tends to go to hell. It was inevitable: I had to start cleaning the house. It's been a few weeks since I vacuumed and it really needs it. So I got going. The next few days will be getting caught up with the housework, so pretty boring stuff. I haven't really got an idea for the next quilt, but here's what's up for me this summer:

1. Barns Class at Quilted Threads June 10.
2. A trip to Colorado with my Mom to visit my Cabinetmaker brother & his florist wife.
3. Another Barns class at Quilted Threads on July 22.
4. A Birds class at Quilted Threads on August 12.
5. My usual vacation in early September to watch the US Open.
6. My son, DIL & granddaughter will visit New England in mid-September. (SQUEE!)
7. A talk and workshop with the Concord (MA) Piecemakers Quilting Guild in late September.

And I'll be finishing these quilts: Fruit Loops, Snow Day, Tumblers, Terrazzo, Jewel Box.

So... How Did You Two Meet?

Janet-Lee and I have a rather unique "how we met" story. In the middle of 2016 I was "kinda sorta" looking for a local long arm quilter because shipping quilts halfway across the country was getting expensive, and since I was starting to make lots of quilts because I wanted to use up some fabric, the shipping costs were increasing.

I'd seen the work of other long arm quilters at various quilt shops and at some of the guilds I spoke to, but I was looking for somebody who wouldn't be intimidated by the unusual quilts that I make. So I was "kinda sorta" looking, but the reality was that I wasn't looking very hard.

In late August of 2016, while on an airplane at 35,000 feet, on my way to visit my new granddaughter for the first time, I was waiting in line for the rest room when I got to talking to one of the stewardesses. Somehow we got to the "I make quilts," and "Yeah, my mother does too," stage of the conversation. The stewardess (Ariana?) told me her mother did long arm quilting, and believe it or not, lived in New Hampshire. I gave her a couple of postcards of my work and didn't think much about it.

Close up of quilting on the Fruit Loops quilt

Two months later, Ariana finally gave her mother the cards, and Janet-Lee wrote to me, and we went back and forth about what I like and what I didn't like in quilting. She wrote that she quilts about 300 quilts a year, and knew what she was doing. We exchanged contact information and there it sat for about five months. During this time I started making the Scrap Slab triangle quilts, and finished up the Digital Pinwheels. I had six quilts that needed quilting, and the stack was growing. I needed a local quilter.

Digital Pinwheels

At some point it dawned on me that Janet-Lee was one of the owners of the MQX shows, and there was an MQX show in Manchester in April 2017, which was like two days away. I bundled up the Fruit Loops and Digital Pinwheels quilts and went to see the show and meet Janet-Lee. We hit it off and I left the quilts with her. I told her to do whatever she felt was best.

The quilting on Treasure Trove.

 Now Janet Lee is no dummy. She knew perfectly well the quilts I had left with her were only "couch quilts" and that I wanted to see how good she was.

Well, she didn't disappoint. Janet-Lee certainly knows what she is doing, and when I went to pick up my quilts, I left her Treasure Trove, Snow Day and the Tumblers quilts.

We searched through her quilt designs and chose patterns for those three quilts, but as I left I told her that if she got to one quilt and she didn't think the design we picked out was right for the quilt, to go ahead and do what she felt was best.
.

detail of the Jewel Box quilt

On at least one quilt, she did just that, and I was thrilled with her choice. I left the Jewel Box quilt and Terrazzo, the black and white Slashed Squares quilt.

Terrazzo Quilt

 So by the time it came to quilt the Colorado Quilt, I had no qualms. Janet-Lee knew just what to do and I let her do it.

detail of the Colorado Quilt

So the next time you meet somebody in an airplane, 35,000 feet above sea level, somewhere over the US, don't underestimate the connection.

You never know.

Not only do I have a great long arm quilter, I have a good friend, and next year I'm going to teach at the MQX show in Manchester.

Who'da thought?